Job 19

LEB(i) 1 Then* Job answered and said, 2 "How long* will you* torment me* and crush me with words? 3 These ten times you* have disgraced me; you* are not ashamed that you* have attacked* me. 4 And what is more, if I have truly erred, my error remains with me. 5 If indeed you* must magnify yourselves against me, and you* must let my disgrace argue against me, 6 know then that God has wronged me and has surrounded me with his net. 7 "Look, I cry out, 'Violence!' but* I am not answered; I cry out, but* there is no justice. 8 He has walled up my way so that* I cannot pass; and he has set darkness upon my paths. 9 He has taken my glory from me, and he has removed the crown of* my head. 10 He has broken me down all around, and I am gone. And he has uprooted my hope like a tree, 11 and he has kindled his wrath against me, and he has counted me as one of his foes.* 12 His troops have come together and have thrown up their rampart* against me and have encamped around my tent. 13 "He has removed my kinsfolk from me, and my acquaintances have only* turned aside from me. 14 My relatives have failed, and my close friends have forgotten me. 15 The sojourners in* my house and my slave women count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes. 16 I call to my servant, but* he does not answer; I must personally* plead with him. 17 My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.* 18 Little boys also despise me; when I rise, then* they talk against me. 19 All my intimate friends* abhor me, and these whom I have loved have turned against me. 20 My bones* cling to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. 21 "Pity me, pity me, you my friends, for God's hand has touched me. 22 Why do you* pursue me like God? And are not satisfied with my flesh? 23 "O that* my words could be written down! O that they could be inscribed in a scroll!* 24 That with a pen of iron and with lead they might be engraved on a rock forever! 25 But* I myself* know that my redeemer is alive, and at the last he will stand up upon the earth.* 26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, but* from* my flesh I will see God, 27 whom I will see for myself,* and whom my eyes will see and not a stranger.* My heart faints within me.* 28 "If you* say, 'How will we persecute him?' And 'The root of the trouble is found' in me,* 29 be afraid for yourselves because of the sword,* for wrath brings punishment by* the sword, so that you may know that there is judgment."